A special someone is visiting soon, and I found the Perfect Board Book that we can enjoy together.
Title: Your Island
Written & Illustrated By: Jon Klassen
Publisher/Date: Candlewick Press/2025
Suitable for Ages: 2-5
Themes/Topics: island, board book, world building
Opening:
This is your sun.
It is coming up for you.
Brief Synopsis: An island comes alive for little listeners.
Links to Resources:
· Have you visited an island? How did you journey there? What did you see there? Hear there? Eat there? Feel or smell there?
· Try these island-themed craft projects.
Why I Like this Book:
With straightforward, short sentences and soft ink and graphite illustrations, Klassen invites little listeners with big imaginations to build an island. But not just any island. It’s your island.
What will you have on your island? Klassen starts with a sun that’s rising “for you”. Add a palm tree, plants, “a magic fire” that “will never go out”, a bird that “flies away sometimes but he always comes back”, and more. Soon your island is complete.
That’s a good thing, because a sun that comes up, also goes back down, as adults remind every little listener. When that happens, it’s time for everyone to close eyes, including everything on the island (this is a Jon Klassen book, after all, so everything has eyes).
With “your island” asleep, it’s time for little listeners to sleep, too, and dream about “your island”.
Your Island is such a calming, comforting board book, part of a series of three board books (the others are set on a Farm and in a Forest), that Klassen and Candlewick released earlier this week. It’s smaller than many board books, with a muted color scheme and lots of white space. The many references to “you” and “your” places little listeners at the heart of the story, assuring them that the world is their oyster, or in this case, their island.
I imagine young listeners wanting to revisit their very own island again and again while dreaming of building their own island someday.
A Note about Craft:
With a House that Jack Built cadence and the simplest of declarative statements, Klassen populates the island with object after object. He introduces the objects with text on the right side of each spread, and he moves them with each page turn to the left side. I can imagine a felt or sticker version of this book at some point to enable young toddlers to create their own island paradise. Oh, wait, I just read on Instagram that Klassen was thinking of a felt set he had used as a child when he envisioned this series! No wonder I see a felt version in the future.
This Perfect Picture Book entry is being added to Susanna Hill’s Perfect Picture Book list. Check out the other great picture books featured there!
Wander, Ponder, Write 